Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The second half semester has been quite hectic, we have been continuing with our A11 On the Job assignment along with working on our other assignment A12 Culture Vulture.

For the first part of the Culture Vulture assignment we had the task of performing a five minute presentation on a 20th/21st century design icon, I chose the London Underground Map. I was quite looking forward to this because I felt that it would be a good experience in preparation for our final presentation at the end of the course. After making sure that I had rehearsed and prepared for the presentation I made sure that I arrived 10 minutes early so that I didn’t miss my slot. Unfortunately instead of knocking on the door I waited outside the room for 20 minutes thinking that somebody was still inside. This resulted in me missing my slot and having to come back at the end. I did eventually perform the presentation and I was quite pleased that this ran pretty smoothly and I managed to get all of my main points across. If I were to do this exercise again I would definitely knock on the door straight away as missing my slot highlighted to me just how important punctuality is.

The remainder of the Culture Vulture assignment specified that we had to undertake the design process in reverse. I was quite nervous about this as it was the most creative task we have done so far on the course. Due to the fact that the design process was in reverse we did not know what we were designing for so our ideas were not influenced in any way. I found this quite difficult to get my head round at first and I struggled to come up with a variety of “diverse” ideas. In order to achieve more variety in my designs I decided to look at graphic design books and magazines for some inspiration. I feel that this was really beneficial because I ended up exploring ideas and themes that I would not have considered otherwise.

After I had created a sufficient number of designs we were given our product to apply a design to, this was the M5 Coca Cola bottle. I was quite eager to get started with this as there was very little time left before the deadline. I wanted to choose an appropriate design as soon as possible as I felt that creating the digital artwork was going to be the hardest part of the assignment. After spending quite a lot of time on this in my self study I began to feel much more confident that I had made the right choice with my rock star idea. I feel that creating the digital artwork has been a really beneficial exercise for me because I now feel much more capable in vector drawing applications such as Freehand. If I were to do this task again however I would definitely try to use another application such as Adobe Illustrator as it is an application I have never used before.

The other assignment we have been working on is On the Job which has been going since the beginning of the second year. This has proved to be quite a frustrating assignment at times in terms of communicating with clients, arranging meetings, getting content etc. I do feel that it has been a great experience though because this is the sort of thing we are going to have to do after the course so being able to deal with clients effectively is a key skill to have. I also feel that the two clients we have dealt with have been completely different. I feel this was advantageous because we learnt that you cannot expect every client to be the same and they all have separate demands and expectations.

I think that we have worked quite well as a team for the On the Job assignment and both clients seem to be happy with the end product. The assignment has seemed to drag on quite a bit over the last few months but I feel that the experience gained in dealing with clients will be invaluable for the future.

Overall I feel that this has been a really productive half semester. I have been forced to move out of my comfort zone by undertaking a design process in reverse and worked on two professional projects. I am looking forward to seeing what awaits after Christmas in what I find hard to believe will be the final quarter of the course!

I think it would definately be beneficial for you to use Adobe Illustrator, I'm sure I've mentioned before, I prefer it Freehand. Freehand, to me, seems a bit awkward. Being able to use Freehand will mean that you shouldn't find it too hard to pick up Illustrator.

I agree that you, your Rock star was your best idea and it suits the Coke bottle I think. I also agree with your comments about on the job we do seem to have been doing this assignment for a lot longer than we actually have. I think the experience we have gained for both assignments will sand us in good stead for the future.

I think I agree with Drew even though I don’t know Illustrator I will try and get a copy and learn this as it does seem to be used a lot in the industry when compared to Freehand.